- Anyone making $375,000 + the minimum salary ($550,000) will count in part against the cap upon a reduction to the minors. For example, a player making $1.2 million would count as $275,000 on the cap (1.2 M - [375k + 550k]).

Known no-trade clauses:
- Alexei Emelin (full in 14-15/15-16, limited in 16-17/17-18)
- Sergei Gonchar (modified NMC - can be dealt/waived between Jan. 1/15 and Mar. 2/15) - unsure if this lapsed when dealt to MTL

If you have any questions, either PM me or reply to this thread. (As this is a thread for everyone, if there's something you'd like covered, please let me know.) More information will be added throughout the season and as it becomes available. The thread will be cleaned out periodically to keep all relevant information within 1 page.

Legend: Black - under contract, Red - UFA, Blue - RFA, Purple - Needs to be signed for next season or rights lost. SR - Slide Rule, NQC - Non-Qualification Candidate, Crossed out name - player has signed overseas

Group 6 free agency is for players who are 25 or older, have played at least 3 pro seasons, aren't on their entry-level deal anymore, and have played less than 80 NHL games (28 GP) for goalies. Andre Benoit and Shawn Belle both qualified for this last season, Cedrick Desjardins (dealt by the Habs before the preseason) will as well.

All must see a ton of 2012 draft picks being signed lately.Why are they being signed now, when i assume most dont need to before June 1st, 2014.

Are there advantages to say, signing Galchenyuk today, vs next March when finishing up junior year? Habs normally wait to sign draft picks, is that a club policy or something?

Generally speaking, this has become more commonplace in recent years. There's a cap advantage (albeit a minor one) to signing a prospect and then having them play in junior, referred to as a contract slide as I'm sure you've seen me mention before. Basically, the value of the signing bonus comes off the players' cap for each year they're signed, under 20, and not in the NHL.

Case in point is Brendan Gallagher. He had a cap hit of $900,000 with a max signing bonus ($90,000). Although he signed during the year, it was before the March 1st cutoff (I think that's the date) so he qualified for a slide. As a result, his cap hit is now $870,000 (the difference being the $90,000 bonus divided by the 3 years on the contract); his 'salary' (including bonuses) is 900/900/810.

Also, and this is speculation on my end, agents may be pushing the players to sign especially with talks of extended and only partially guaranteed ELC's (the 5 year proposal only has 2 guaranteed years plus 3 options).

Basically that's the terminology I was given when I got the info. Modified is the popular term now which suggests that it changes throughout the deal whereas limited/partial implies that that it's a fixed restriction that isn't a full one (ie: 5 teams the player can block a move to for the duration of the contract).

Remember, guys, that this is a salary cap/CBA thread. Try to make sure that your posts here at least reference something to do with the cap or CBA. Otherwise, they will be deleted (I clean this thread often to try to keep it to relevant questions/comments and notes).

Does that mean that some of their bonuses will be counted against next year's cap? I'm not sure how this stuff works. Is it the same deal with Iginla in Boston?

Any bonuses that they earn are supposed to be counted against the current year cap. The bonus cushion allows them to carry over that charge into next year (to a max of 7.5% of the cap which the Habs aren't near) if they don't have enough space to absorb it on the current year. I can't say whether some of the bonuses will go on next year's yet as we don't yet know how much space the Habs will have come April and which bonuses will actually be hit. This constant roster shuffling is allowing them to bank space to be used either for a later acquisition/recall or to offset against the bonuses (although it's a really, really tiny amount right now). Hopefully that makes some sense.

Brian I am confused. I thought ltir gave you the space to replace the guy you lost, so how is it adversely affecting our cap space?

You are correct in that it opens up a spot for a replacement by allowing the team to exceed the cap by the amount of the injured player(s). However, while the team is in LTIR, the cap space that they have saved so far is reduced at the same time (straight-line amortization); the difference is what the LTIR credit is. Here's the 2011-12 capsheet where this happened, it may be easier looking at a visual example (look at the LTIR tab if it doesn't take you there).

Any team that finishes the season while using LTIR has $0 in cap space; if you look at Capgeek, you'll note that any team currently in LTIR (all 10 of them) has a total of $0 in projected space. You cannot be under the cap and be in LTIR at the same time.

The reason I say it's ideal to avoid LTIR for as long as possible is simply to preserve as much banked cap space as possible. The Habs will need a lot of it at the end of the year to cover the bonuses while it'd also be nice to have some for any trades/recalls/other pickups. Inevitably, it may happen if someone else goes down; if so, the goal then will be to get back out of it as soon as possible.

Just one question about LTIR: if it turns out Briere is gone long term (let's say done until spring for whatever reason), would the Habs then put him on LTIR? I always thought that LTIR freed up the capspace of the injured player, but you said if you use it then you have $0 in capspace (but maybe that's just for the very end of the year).

They could (it'd depend on who else is on at that time and how much they plan to go over the cap - if it's just to call up Dumont or something like that, they may not need to). In its most simplistic terms, LTIR does free up the cap space of the injured player. In reality, it only frees up the cap space of the injured player less any cap savings to that point (that's why the 'banked total' gets amortized). Worth noting is that the injured player - in this case, Briere - will still count in full against the cap, it's just that the Habs would be allowed to spend over the cap during his absence.

A team that ends the year on LTIR will have $0 in cap space. A team that uses it but doesn't finish with it (the player comes back before the end of the year), cap space can start accruing again (since the team has to be under the cap before activating a player off LTIR).

One thing I've been trying to figure out is the rules pertaining to AHL demotions prior to the Olympic break. A way to try to save some cap space (and get Bournival some playing time) would be to send him down during the break. From what I've gathered, that is not going to be possible...sort of. Here's a summary of the demotion rules that will soon come into play:

- Anyone that needs waivers would still need waivers to go down during the break (let's get the easy one out of the way)

- Waiver exempt players (Bournival and Gallagher) who have been on an NHL roster for 87 days or more prior to January 24th are entitled to an Olympic break if they are assigned any time after the 24th (5 PM EST) through to February 9th at 5 PM (one day after the Habs' final game). In other words, they are not eligible to play. However, they would collect their AHL pay instead of their NHL pay during this time. If they aren't assigned by the 9th at 5, they cannot be sent down for the duration of the break.

- If a waiver exempt player (let's just use Bournival since this wouldn't happen with Gallagher) with 87 NHL days gets sent down prior to the 24th at 5 PM EST, he is eligible to play in Hamilton...unless (yay, exceptions to the rule...) Bournival is to play 16 of the Habs' final 20 games before the break. We're 8 games into that stretch, he has played 7 of those.

- If Bournival gets sent down after 5 PM on the 24th and before the Habs' last game before the break , he is eligible to play for Hamilton in the time period between the date of demotion and the beginning of the break.

- If anyone with less than 87 NHL days gets recalled before Jan. 24th (Beaulieu), they can be sent down and be eligible to play during the Games as long as they're demoted before February 9th at 5 PM EST.

Long story short...

Bournival can be assigned to Hamilton during the Olympic break to save cap space up until February 9th at 5 PM EST. However, he will not be eligible to play for the Bulldogs during the Olympics unless sent before January 24th. The financial savings on the cap if they send him down for the break would be a bit over $57,000.

What happens after the deadline in terms of the call ups on the expanded roster? How much does the expanded roster effect the cap, or does it?

After the deadline, there is no limit to a roster size, teams don't have to send players down when activating someone from IR. Instead of there being 23 on the active roster, there will probably be a couple more. That said, there is a limit of four non-emergency recalls that a team can use between the trade deadline and the completion of their farm teams' season. (So in Hamilton's case, the end of the regular season as I think playoffs are approaching pipe dream status despite them winning lately.)

As for the cap effects, the Habs have to stay under the cap at all times, that doesn't change from now. Post-deadline callups do count against the cap though (unless it's a postseason recall).

If you've read my articles over the past little while, you've likely seen some mention of the term 'slide rule.' Basically, it applies to players who are under the age of 20 and don't play more than 9 NHL games in a given season. Those players see their contracts 'slide' a year while their cap hit and other compensation (NHL and AHL salaries plus performance bonuses) are bumped back a year as well. The simplest way to describe the calculation is that the cap hit for the full contract is reduced by the average annual signing bonus divided by three (years of the contract). Here are the prospects that the slide rule affected this year:

Michael McCarron: Cap hit drops by $30,833

Zach Fucale: Cap hit drops by $30,833

Tim Bozon: Cap hit drops by $28,333

Charles Hudon: Cap hit drops by $25,000

Despite all being under contract this season in Year 1 of their 3 year ELC's, each player still has 3 years left on said contract.

Both McCarron and Fucale are eligible for another slide next year as well as is Jacob de la Rose who signed recently.

These have all been revised on the contract page. I haven't rolled it over to next year yet as now I have to focus on writing (likely 10 or so articles over the next 2-3 weeks) leaving too little time to fix up that page. I'll get to rolling it over sometime before free agency hopefully.

Cap Geek says today's cap space for Habs is $1,980,193, and at the deadline the space will be $6,831,667....

What exactly does that mean? How do they have so much more at deadline, than today?

The Habs so far have 'banked' about $830,000 in cap space (you won't find that on CG, that's from my cap sheet). If they added a player making that $1.98 M today, that banked space would whittle away to $0 at the end of the season. At the trade deadline, there are way fewer days to spend that projected banked space (which would be a bit over $1.35 M at that time^). Adding a player making $6.8 M on deadline day would then whittle that banked space down to $0.

Of course, any change whatsoever to the roster will change these numbers considerably since we're only in November. It's likely that the deadline space number will be much different come deadline day. Also note that these numbers don't take bonuses into consideration. The Habs - or any smart team - will want to keep some banked space to avoid being over the cap at the end of the year when bonuses get added in. An allowance for that will take a big chunk (at least $1 M) off the deadline space. (Not because they're budgeting $1 M or more in bonuses but because they will want to keep a few hundred thousand in banked space at the end of the year which is around 20-25% of where the banked space would be on deadline day; take that percentage off the deadline day space accordingly.)

^ - [$830,000 + (112 days until the deadline x $4,664 - the daily amount banked with the roster as is)]

Hopefully some of that made sense...

Edit: Check in a bit on what the new numbers are with Bowman/Beaulieu going down today, you'll see how a couple of small demotions can really affect the projections.

Most of you know I'm not a fan of using the projected cap space at trade deadline day as even the smallest transaction can make a big change. Nonetheless, I know most of you like it so I've added it to my cap sheet.

I know this question will be coming up as a result of Allen being placed on waivers. If he clears on Tuesday and is assigned to the AHL, he will still count against the cap to the tune of $2,575,000 [$3.5 M cap hit less ($375k + league minimum salary)].

This was intended to go as part of my HW Recap but as it turned out, I rambled on too much as I often do. Thus, here's a full article about the Habs' cap situation heading into the deadline: http://www.habsworld...cle.php?id=3622

"While that seems all well and good, it doesn't take into account potential performance bonuses."

I don't understand this. I am under the impression performance bonuses for this year actually don't count against this year's cap - they count against NEXT year's cap. (This is why Boston was hamstrung THIS season by Iginla's excellent contract LAST season.)